Mexican GP Race runner-up Valtteri Bottas achieved his best result so far at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on Sunday.
It was his second podium finish in Mexico and the 20th of his Formula One career.
At the same time, it marked the 290th Top Three result for a Mercedes-powered car.
On Valtteri's one and only pit stop (Lap 32), the crew performed the fastest wheel change of the race in a time of 2.19 seconds.
Despite standing on the podium, it really was his teammate. Lewis Hamilton's day, after he secured his fourth world title with a ninth placed finish and Valtteri couldn't be any happier for himโฆ
โThe right man won the title this year, Lewis absolutely deserves this! He's my team mate, so I know he's not only talented, but also a hard worker, and a really nice guy,โ he said. โSo even though we're competing, I'm also happy for him - but I still want to beat him next year.โ
โThe race was pretty straightforward after the start. I saw in Turn 2 that Max and Sebastian were side-by-side, and one of them went a bit wide, so I knew Turn 3 was going to be a mess.โ
โSo I decided to go inside and cut the corner and get a good exit. After that there was not much happening. Unfortunately, we couldn't challenge Max, so I drove it home. We saw we didn't have the pace to win the race, so we have a lot of things to learn.โ
โBut overall, it was not a bad day for us - I felt I got the most out of the car, it was good to be on the podium after such a long time, and of course Lewis won the title.โ
After 18 of the 20 races in the current season, the team has 11 wins, 13 pole positions and 23 podiums to its credit.
